Higurashi

"Aaargh...!"

The Fire-Rat Robe over Inuyasha's chest was torn apart in an instant by the powerful spiritual power radiating from the Sacred Arrow! The arrowhead was almost touching the skin over his heart!

White arcs of ferocious Miko spiritual power shredded his arms into a bloody mess, with the worst wounds going deep enough to expose bone.

His palms were charred black.

Yet Inuyasha kept struggling, gripping the arrow shaft with both hands and doing everything he could to hold his doom at bay.

He did not want to die.

The sight made Li Xia's scalp prickle.

There was no doubt that if Kikyo kept this attack going, if it landed properly, Inuyasha would be done for!

Hey, hey, hey, Kagome, what's going on with you? Why aren't you waking up?

Li Xia swallowed.

He did not know whether Inuyasha was panicking, but he certainly was.

He had never imagined that a couple of casual suggestions from him would change the course of the story so drastically, creating a situation that could very well get Inuyasha killed.

But he had never wanted to kill his companion Inuyasha.

What could he do?

What should he do?

"Right... Kikyo!"

But the only response he received was a pair of beautiful, ice-cold eyes!

His ideal woman was anything but ideal at that moment!

The look she gave him was downright vicious!

Kikyo clearly had no intention of letting Inuyasha live. Perhaps, just as in the early part of the original story, she only wanted to drag him down to Hell with her?!

That approach was a dead end. He would have to rely on Kagome after all!

"Higurashi, wake up!"

Wasn't this supposed to be the moment when your desperate desire to save Inuyasha triggered a resonance between your souls, letting you forcefully reclaim most of the soul inside Kikyo?

If you don't wake up and take those souls back, how is Kikyo supposed to lose her power? How are you supposed to save Inuyasha indirectly?

"Higurashi..."

Seeing no response at all from the sleeping Kagome, Li Xia broke into a nervous sweat.

His brain raced, wisps of smoke rising from the top of his head.

Just then, an idea flashed through his mind!

He immediately blurted out in the girl's direction:

"Higurashi, your grandpa's been attacked by a demon again! Your storehouse is on fire again! Hurry and save your grandpa..."

It did not work.

Try another...

"Higurashi, your little brother Souta's started dating before you..."

This time, it worked!

Kagome's eyelids fluttered slightly, but unfortunately, she still did not open her eyes.

It probably needed a little more punch.

"Higurashi, your mom's found you a new stepdad..."

At those words, the corners of Kagome's mouth visibly twitched, and her fingertips stirred as well.

Her brow seemed to knot with irritation.

Clearly, she was getting worked up inside.

"Kagome, your Math Exam is coming up! Get up and study! You don't want to finish at the bottom of the class, do you?"

The topics of math, exams, and studying immediately stirred what was currently the girl's greatest fear!

Her eyes snapped open, giving Shippo beside her a fright!

Immediately afterward, something strange happened to Kikyo's clay body: countless glowing spheres of soul escaped from her body, then poured into Kagome like swallows returning to their nests! It was quite a spectacular sight!

"The souls came back?"

Everyone was utterly stunned.

They had no idea what miraculous spell or incantation Li Xia had just used to forcibly extract all those souls from Kikyo's clay body.

This was a good thing, at least for everyone else.

For Kikyo, however, it was devastating news.

"No!"

"Come back!"

"Don't leave me..."

Kikyo, who had been so fierce just a moment earlier, was now utterly panicked.

She kept reaching for the glowing spheres, trying to retrieve at least a few of those souls. But no matter how hard she tried, no matter how she called out, they abandoned her cold body without hesitation and chose the warm Kagome nearby.

The vast majority of the four souls representing love, familial affection, courage, and wisdom were actively avoiding Kikyo, who was now dominated by resentment and the aura of death!

The negative portion of the soul, on the other hand, preferred this clay body!

Leave. Get away from here. I have to get away from that girl, or I'll lose every last soul left inside me...

In a panic, Kikyo limped away.

This was the moment when the souls of her present and past incarnations resonated, and it was also the moment when she was in the greatest danger.

As the vast majority of the souls returned to Kagome's flesh-and-blood body, Kikyo's power rapidly drained away. The Sacred Arrow she had fired earlier also seemed to have its strength siphoned away out of thin air.

A Sacred Arrow was, in essence, an "arrow of the soul."

Without the soul, it had lost the very source of its power.

"Inuyasha, are you all right?"

Li Xia hurried forward to support Inuyasha and check his companion's condition.

Inuyasha was in a truly miserable state.

This was the price of saying one wrong thing.

"Hah, hah... I'm okay... Thanks, Xia!"

Inuyasha put on a brave face.

But he did not forget to express his gratitude.

A moment ago, he had truly thought he was finished!

Fortunately, his companion had awakened Kagome in time, forcibly drawing the souls out of Kikyo and saving him!

"By the way, Xia, was what Kikyo and I had genuine love, or just an impulse born of shared suffering?"

Battered, wounded, and looking thoroughly bedraggled, Inuyasha asked the question with some embarrassment.

His brush with death, coupled with Li Xia's earlier objective assessment of Kikyo, had made him question his supposed love with her to some extent.

Li Xia paused at the question, then fell into thought.

It seemed he had once again caused the story to deviate in some way.

Still, as a companion, he needed to give this guy a reminder:

"Go after her! She's at her weakest right now, and she's also most likely to listen to you! If you can calm the vengeful spirits inside her, she probably won't trouble you or Kagome again. She might even turn her attention to the mastermind who set you both up back then!"

"The mastermind?"

Inuyasha gritted his teeth, seething with hatred.

He clenched his charred hands tightly, paying no attention to the blood that began dripping from them again.

Yet the Shikon Shards on Li Xia, who stood right beside him, did not darken as a result.

There were two circumstances in which the Shikon Jewel turned black.

One was contamination from the surrounding environment.

For example, Naraku could contaminate the jewel by carrying malicious thoughts within his miasma. The Shikon Jewel could also be tainted with impure blood, or exposed to an environment steeped in resentment, such as Rock Ogre's stomach! Once a Shikon Shard left Kagome, who could purify it, the environment would naturally contaminate it.

The other was being embedded inside a living being.

In that case, once the being developed evil thoughts, the Shikon Jewel would become contaminated and turn black.

But even that was not absolute.

Kōga had done plenty of bad things early on. For instance, he had ordered his wolves to slaughter Rin's village and had even claimed her first death! No matter how one looked at it, he was ruthless and far from a good person! Yet the two Shikon Shards in his legs had not been contaminated!

Thus, one could venture a bold guess: good and evil were relative, to be understood in relation to each other.

The Demon Wolf Tribe's wolves hunting prey and slaughtering humans followed the natural law of survival of the fittest. That did not count as "evil." Surely the wolves could not be expected to starve? Or at least, from Kōga's perspective, his conscience was clear. At the very least, the Shikon Jewel recognized that this was not evil.

So if Li Xia's somewhat complicated thoughts and minor schemes counted as evil that strengthened the Shikon Jewel's Kagari, then what about Inuyasha, Kagome, and the rest of the Protagonist Group, who went around killing creatures and exterminating demons?

Were demons not native inhabitants of this world too?

Demons eating humans was perfectly natural;

Humans slaying demons was equally justified.

It all depended on one's true intentions.

On whether one had "violated" one's own sense of right and wrong.

Back to the matter at hand.

After Li Xia's reminder, Inuyasha did indeed chase after Kikyo's retreating figure.

Li Xia picked up the Soul-Summoning Tree branch that Demoness Urasue had dropped on the ground.

At the same time, he cast a casual glance toward the other side of the kiln cave.

A small figure had been lurking there just a moment earlier.

"So this is an Inuyasha world largely based on the anime?!"

After muttering that to himself,

He turned and told Kaede and Shippo:

"Inuyasha's injuries aren't minor either. I'll go keep an eye on him in case anything happens. Stay here and look after Kagome, and check whether that old hag left any other hidden dangers behind. Just wait for us to come back!"

"Okay!"

The old woman and the little boy nodded.

Li Xia breathed a sigh of relief.

After a moment's thought, he briskly entered the kiln cave and took Urasue's Sickle with him.

Without a handy weapon to defend himself, he could never quite feel at ease.